Last semester, an upsetting occurrence took place in one of the freshman dorms on campus. I attend a small, close-knit college where each class year feels like an extended family and incidents of harassment, bullying, and the like are rare. I considered my school to be a sort of haven where critical thinking and the open exchange of ideas was encouraged, and where individuals rarely attempted to intimidate each other.
That’s why I was especially disappointed to learn that a swastika had been drawn on a bathroom stall in a freshman residence hall.
Anyone with a grasp of world history knows that anti-Semitism has existed for millennia, but few seem to be aware of how dangerous a threat anti-Semitism is to the modern day. Roger Cohen of the New York Times has written in the past that anti-Semitism is growing throughout the United States and in Europe, and has become widely accepted in liberal intellectual circles. Meanwhile, the Huffington Post reports that hate crimes against Jewish people have increased in the past year. The New York Times reports that throughout the past decade, Jews were the most likely minority group to be targeted by hate crimes. Following the Orlando shootings, LBGTQ people became the most vulnerable group, although Jewish people are close behind.
Anti-Semitism has become an even more severe problem of late, given that President Obama has refused to defend Israel in front of the United Nations. Obama’s rebuke of Israel enables and legitimizes anti-Semitic behavior because many anti-Semites claim that their hatred has a rational basis for political disapproval of Israel.
As Roger Cohen has written in the past, it is all too easy for anti-Zionism to turn into anti-Semitism. To discourage these twin movements, it is a moral imperative for the President of the United States to stand with Israel, and yet Obama has failed to do just that at a critical moment. Abandoning Israel represents a moral failure on the part of America, and not just for Israeli Jews, but for American Jews as well. The fact that the first hate crime I have ever heard about occurring on my campus was directed towards Jews makes me believe that this failure is more important—and will have more devastating consequences—than is widely accepted.
To avoid repeating humanity’s tragic history of anti-Semitism, Americans must be aware of how quickly political opposition to Israel and its policies can morph into baseless, violent hatred. While it must be acceptable to criticize some of Israel’s policy decisions, it must be remembered that it was the United Nations, along with some Western powers, and not Israelites, who created the current crisis in the Middle East.
As anyone who has studied world history knows, the United Nations attempted to partition Palestine after World War II and did so in an ineffective manner that led to war between the Israeli Jews and the surrounding Arab nations. Israel only took its current shape after defeating its enemies in those conflicts. In other words, Jews did not establish the current state of Israel out of greed. In fact, Israel, as it exists today, was created as a result of Israel’s will to survive, and the refusal of Israeli Jews to be completely expelled from the region by their neighbors.
As Americans, it is our duty to ensure that Jewish people can continue to exist and thrive in this special space and to fight against hatred.
